In the 5G era, ADI creates a new automotive ecosystem that is "safer, greener, and smarter"

Communication technology advances by one generation approximately every five years, and each advancement brings about earth-shaking changes in our lives. In addition to bringing huge changes to our lives in terms of download speed, smart cities, smart life, and industrial control, the 5G era has a huge impact on the form of automobile consumption and the pattern of automobile Internet, which is stimulating new scenarios, models and even industries, especially the Internet of Vehicles industry.

Gartner predicts that there will be 60 million connected cars in the world by 2020, and 220 million in the next four years. Connected cars bring the public one step closer to autonomous driving, but reliability and safety are a major bottleneck in the popularization of autonomous driving technology. Regarding the safety and reliability of cars, Yifei.com held a discussion on the theme of "Cars, Changed by 5G".

In the 5G era, cars are moving towards being "safer, greener, and smarter".
As more and more cars are connected to the Internet, cars are becoming the protagonists in the 5G era. So, what changes will the commercial use of 5G technology bring to cars and the automotive industry? Technical experts from ADI believe that cars are widely considered to be the key industry application field for 5G. The increase in 5G network speed, lower response latency, and larger capacity network connection will make the leap of 5G network connection not only limited to the Internet, but will also promote revolutionary changes in the fields of automobiles, medical care, and industrial automation. Internet of Vehicles and autonomous driving are inspiring a bright future vision for the development of automobiles.

The vision of autonomous driving is also influenced by ICT technologies, such as environmental perception technology, digital road traffic, various sensors around the car body, radar , lidar, inertial navigation, visual sensors, etc., which have given cars a wealth of functional innovations. The implementation of 5G provides conditions for fast and low-latency communication of these sensor data, which will speed up the information exchange between the cloud and the car, allowing cars to be equipped with more sensors, and functional applications based on these sensors will be implemented one after another.

ADI has three important investment directions in the field of automotive electronics. Corresponding to the three important research directions in the field of automotive electronics: autonomous driving, new energy, and intelligent networking, ADI's three directions are to make cars safer, more environmentally friendly, and smarter. In terms of autonomous driving, ADI provides millimeter-wave radar, high-performance inertial navigation, acceleration sensors, gyroscopes and other key sensors, providing a complete solution for the realization of autonomous driving. The implementation of 5G will empower autonomous driving and provide the possibility of rich entertainment and human-machine interface (HMI) functions in the car cockpit. ADI's A2B audio bus technology, C2B video bus technology and other smart cockpit solutions will have the opportunity to obtain more applications.

With years of technological accumulation, ADI has a complete layout of automotive electronic systems.
As 5G is widely deployed, it will further promote the implementation of autonomous driving. The use of semiconductors in automobiles will continue to increase. As a provider of high-performance analog signal chain solutions including sensors, ADI has a complete layout in the advanced automotive electronic system technology chain.

ADI's innovative products cover the complete automotive electronics industry ecosystem, including automotive airbag and electronic stability control solutions, ultra-high precision inertial navigation solutions, voice interaction and audio processors, audio bus A2B, dedicated in-vehicle video and camera bus technology C2B, advanced HMI, driver status detection, 24GHz and 77GHz millimeter wave radar solutions, DSP, LiDAR/ToF, Drive360™ technology platform, battery management in powertrain systems, high-voltage system isolation, high-precision motor control detection, etc. These industry-leading high-performance products and solutions are playing a vital role in helping global automakers and automotive electronic equipment manufacturers launch research and development that meet the next generation of autonomous driving vehicles.

ADI's leading edge in autonomous driving technology has won wide support from the global automotive ecosystem, including domestic Chinese manufacturers. For example, ADI and Baidu announced last year that they would cooperate through sharing resources and technologies, leveraging ADI's advantages in IMU, millimeter-wave radar, A2B/C2B bus, and DSP product technology. The two companies will carry out extensive cooperation in the autonomous driving perception and navigation applications of Baidu's Apollo autonomous driving program, and jointly provide comprehensive, systematic, and reliable solutions for the fields of autonomous driving, intelligent networking, and smart transportation.

Launching inertial MEMS product portfolio to meet security challenges
Although autonomous driving has freed drivers' hands, security issues are also receiving more and more attention. Once an autonomous car is hacked, especially a car driving on the road, the consequences will be disastrous. ADI also has a variety of solutions to security issues.

ADI's automotive business originated from airbag sensors. ADI released the industry's first High-g MEMS device, applying semiconductor micromechanical technology to airbag sensors for the first time. Based on its advantages in the field of MEMS sensors, ADI has always been in a leading position in the fields of airbags, electronic body stability and anti-rollover. The complete inertial MEMS product portfolio can cope with all aspects of passive safety challenges.

In the field of active safety, ADI has a long history in radar technology, and ADI's technology accounts for 50% of all radar modules developed today. Two years ago, ADI launched the Drive360 28nm CMOS RADAR technology platform, building on ADI's established ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance System), MEMS and RADAR technology portfolio. As the first company to provide automotive RADAR technology based on advanced 28nm CMOS technology, the new Drive360™ RADAR platform applies excellent RF performance to advanced driving safety and autonomous driving.

The mainstream technology uses 24GHz or 77GHz microwave radars, and realizes corresponding functions through different radar modules installed in the front, side, and rear of the vehicle. Radar-based ADAS systems can realize functions such as ACC adaptive cruise control, S&G automatic following, FCW/FCM forward collision warning prevention, BSD blind spot detection, LCA lane change assistance, CTA vertical direction warning, etc. ADI can provide a full range of ADAS solutions based on forward vision and 24GHz/77GHz radar.

ADI is also the industry's leading provider of ToF technology solutions. ADI ToF solutions can accurately measure the distance between objects and cars in car reversing image applications. Compared with traditional ultrasonic sensing solutions, it has a better sensing angle and can provide a wider range of collision detection and prevention for reversing systems. In addition, ToF technology can also be used for driver fatigue monitoring, gesture recognition, and face recognition inside the cockpit, thereby using innovative technology to improve car safety.

ADI believes that the three major trends in the future development of automobiles are safer, greener, and smarter. ADI has invested in three major technology areas to provide three technical supports for this trend: autonomous driving, smart cockpit, and automotive electrification. ADI provides high-performance sensor technology and signal conditioning technology, providing a strong guarantee for automobile safety.

Prepare for autonomous driving to L5.
Currently, autonomous driving applications are roughly between L2 and L3, that is, partial autonomous driving and conditional autonomous driving. It is expected that by around 2025, autonomous driving will be able to enter the highly autonomous stage, and by 2030, autonomous driving will be able to enter the fully autonomous stage.

There are many difficulties in achieving higher-level autonomous driving vehicles. For example, LiDAR, in addition to some particle and weather restrictions, is currently priced too low for mass production applications. ADI's inertial navigation is currently the world's most powerful product. ADI's inertial navigation is a tactical-grade product. What ADI is doing now is to redefine this product with its partners, lowering its price to the automotive level for mass production, while its performance can also meet locomotive requirements. ADI's Drive360™ 28nm CMOS radar platform supports a variety of advanced signal processing integrations, even custom IP integration, which is an unavailable prerequisite for its application in the emerging field of autonomous driving.

In self-driving cars, both software and hardware systems play an important role. ADI technical experts believe that the roles of software and hardware must complement each other. With the increase of intelligent functions and the strengthening of 5G network connections, the synergy of software and hardware will play a stronger role. Autonomous driving will involve a large amount of sensor data collection, and software and hardware play a key role in the processing, judgment and execution of these data. More and more applications will perform some simple DSP operations on the sensor side to provide customers with functions such as target recognition. This avoids processing all data on the main controller. This improves computing efficiency, improves system response speed and reliability, and reduces system risks.